Intravenous drug dependence in adolescence

Abstract

Purpose To explore psychosocial background and preceding substance use related to intravenous drug dependence (IDD) among adolescents.

Methods A clinical sample of 278 adolescents (age 12–17) admitted to psychiatric inpatient hospitalization between April 2001 and January 2004 was studied. Data concerning psychosocial variables and substance use were gathered from the Schedule for Affective Disorder and Schizophrenia for School‐Age Children Present and Lifetime (K‐SADS‐PL), the European Addiction Severity Index (EuropASI) and the interview schedule of the First Treatment Demand protocol of the Pompidou Group of the Council of Europe.

Results The prevalence of IDD was increased if the adolescent was living without biological father or mother, had history of truancy or had been transferred to special class. Initiation age of IDD was significantly lower if the adolescent was living without biological father or mother, the mother of the adolescent was employed full‐time or if the adolescent had been transferred to special class. Early substance experiment was associated with IDD and with earlier initiation of intravenous use. The progression from regular tobacco use to IDD was faster among girls compared to boys.

Implications Common milestones in the progression of IDD are school problems, disturbed relations to parents and previous substance experiments at young age.

• Adolescent
• intravenous drug dependence
• intravenous drug use

Acknowledgements

This study received support from the Ethel F. Donaghue Women's Health Investigator Program at Yale, the Alcoholic Beverage Medical Research Foundation andthe Päivikki and Sakari Sohlberg Foundation. The authors thank the staff of the adolescent unit 70 of the Oulu University Hospital for data collection, and all the adolescents who participated in this study.